The Hand of Heart and the Touch of Fate
by SmokeGetsInYourEyes
Summary: (( That sounds about right.)) said the annoying voice, it's cutting tone permeating through the haze of Harry's panicked musings. (( Hunt the Horcrux' , keep your parents alive so that you can be born and not create a paradox, and make sure the largest, most capable Anti-Death Eater force is strong and prepared. Sounds like a plan to ME…))
1. Chapter 1

**PROLOGUE: I SOLOMNLY SWEAR...**

He would have loved to say that all that was left was darkness; an infinite abyss of burning ash and rubble, screams renting the air and blood dribbling over carmine-saoked earth and around a horizon full of clammy, lifeless corpses. He would have loved to be able to say -to anyone- that the only thing he could see was death and pain and magic lingering in the air like smoke, poisonous and foggy, clinging to crushed blades of grass and the grotesque sculptures of beaten-down walls that was all that remained of his home. That all he could hear was his own cries of anger and rage, and bone crushing despair, as one by one the soldiers, his FRIENDS and his FAMILY were crushed and beaten and snuffed out like the weak, wavering flames of hope that they had always been. Candles overrun by a sea of blackness and blood.

But he couldn't. There was light, blinding light painting the sky above him a dazzling crimson, and distant sounds of movement, the wind rushing tentatively through trees, birds hiccuping chirps, the occasional sob of someone he probably didn't know, and the scent of tangy blood and wet, winter-saoked earth, penetrating through the fog of ambient, poisonous magic. High above him, the branches of trees swayed in a heavy gust of wind, paper-thin leaves gleaming emerald with filter light the color of gold, and someone sang a song.

He tried to blink the image of a dream from his eyes, shaking, blurry hands rising from their bent positions in the soil to scrub at the crusty skin of his cheeks. Blood crumbled off of his face, his nail renting paths through old gouges, and he let his hands fall back to the ground where they lay with the rest of him; numb, buzzing with fading power, weighted down with a deeply set weariness.

" Are you, H-h-harry P-potter, sir?" A nervous hiccuping voice from his left. Harry contemplated moving his neck, tried a couple of times in the long awkward pause after the question to do so, but gave it up, waiting instead for the man to show up in his field of vision which - right now- was only sky and trees and wind. A head popped into sight, sweaty and streaked with dirt, large, jowl-like cheeks puffed and flushed red. Small, nervous blue eyes stared at him almost fearfully, as if he was a corpse.

" Sir? Are, are you alright? Do you need a medic?" The man was utterly terrified, and Harry knew he was probably scaring him- he dredged up a bitter smile, the muscles of his face twisting and contorting in painful ways beneath a crust of dried scum- but it didn't seem to mean much to the man, who looked even more scared now.

"…" Harry opened his mouth to say something, but the air only exited with a whoosh of sound, his chest caving into deflation, "….I….I…"

What could he say for that? His body was absolute rubbish, he could probably never stand again in his life. Maybe not see, it the shifting orbs of purple and black that swam across his vision meant anything besides the-dakness-is-waiting-go-to-sleep-Harry-go-to-sleep. He needed… he needed relief. He needed to erase everything. He needed his friends. His family. He needed to see them.

" I need to die."

The man flinched, looking taken aback.

" Excuse me, s-sir, " the man stuttered, astonished, his eyes shifting wildly, flitting over Harry's batters, twisted body, to the surrounding mesh of forest, to his wildly fluttering hands, " W-w-what d-d-did you just say…?"

" I said that I need to die." ((The poor man didn't need to hear this, you just want to vent. You never have been able to do that, have you? Not without upsetting the Dursleys, or Hermione, or Ron.))- a voice in Harry's head whispered.

_Oh look, I have a concionce now. Aren't only crazy people supposed to have voices in their heads?_

((You got pretty wacked up.))

…Yea, ah, yea…

" I don't know sir, I-I-I think y-you're in shock s-sir." the man mumbled, and Harry could hear him stumble back, could hear the whispery sound of his robe collar twisting as he undoubtably cast his gaze frantically about for help, " I'll go get the Medi-witches…yes, yes I th-think I'll do that….very helpful…he's very hurt…"

Footsteps pattering off. Harry closed his eyes and fell asleep.

Harry woke up twice. Once to blinding light, a lumos bathing his naked flesh in soft, glowing magic, and a hoard of lime, medi-wizard robes, crowding around his body. Voices cascaded down over him like waves of hissing, growling voices- meaning nothing. The second time he woke, was to darkness.

And Fire.

" _Child. Child, awaken. I can hear our voice and smell your heart, your heat I feel within mine own. Child, I bid thee, awaken."_

An ancient voice speaking ancient cracking words in an echoing chorus of magic humming. Harry opened his eyes.

"_Wind child, Child of fiery will.I can see you."_

And Harry could see the voice. A blinding flower of red and gold and light aching in graceful curves, feathers patterned with archaic and elicit symbols, wide, luminous eyes, cracked and crusted with ages, a murky blue. The taste of ash exploded in Harry's mouth, perfume, and scented sweetly.

" I can see you." came the hushedly whispered greeting, falling from his lips involuntarily, " Who…?"

His voice echoed also in the balck, flung back at him through endless folds of murky grey shadows, amplified and chorussed by a trill of what he could feel as his own Core- humming noted in every octave. It made his tired, dry rasp sound beautiful, round and all-encompassing, pulsating with magic and heat and life.

_"I am the Flame of the Ages, "_ rumbled the voice, even as the bird withdrew it's head from pressed against Harry's forehead and puffed up the iridescent feathers of it's breast_, " I am the heart of Magic, the soul of all things bathed in power. I have come to meet you, my Child."_

Harry couldn't speak, but the words fell from his lips; " I see you Heart."

"_ With eyes unclouded with hatred, unburdened with purpose." _the Heart said, as if kindly, his old, wise eyes blinking gently at Harry,_ " I see you, warrior made by my hand and by the touch of Fate. I have come to claim you as my own."_

The rest passed as if by dream. The haunting, frighteningly loud voice of the Heart painting a world of thought and feeling in the blank void of the surrounding dream, streams of light spoken from the birds cracked beak spilling forth and twining together, tugging at Harry's magic, whispering to his core. Too much knowledge… too much age… too much power, monopolizing his every thought and breath- his body thrumming and bursting with the feeling of falling asleep and wakening, over and over.

"_Your enemy, you defeated, and by your hand released Death from his ancient bonds to Man…. it was a great service, an event foretold…. the beginning of all life… the beginning of all death…"_

The bird spread his wings and his words carried the sound of the wind, whispering secrets in a hushed, inhuman voice- the language of the leaves, the call of lighting singing of a tale, a prophecy, the powers and sentient forces of life weaving together a lullaby soft and ominous, full of solemnity and promise.

_"He who defied the track of life, disrupted the flow of the River… a pebble cast into the current of a brook…"_

The smell of Lilies, Harry realized with a pang, and the strong vision of a flowers petal, silently disturbed by a ripple. Bobbing for a moment before twirling lazily on down it's path of glimmering blue.

_"He left his Mark upon this land…Dark and Light in equal balance… Power held by none but shared through the strings of the soul…"_

A sickening taint, staining the ambient magic of the earth, besmirching her gentle light and tugging at her shadows, a fingerprint, streaked across a clear glass pane.

_"Magic CANNOT BE HELD… Magic CANNOT BE RESTRAINED….WE CANNOT STAND THE WOUND HE MARRED APON OUR SHORES.."_

Fury. agony of caring and protecting and being too weak, being too far away to sooth the blistered palm of his home. Harry felt an old, lingering anger bubble to the surface of his psyche, old hurts reopened so that he would understand what pain the heart felt ( losing Sirius, losing his parents, losing Cedric, Fred, Tonks, Remus, Luna, Neville, Ron, Hermione, Collin, Ginny, EVERYONE )

_"He left his magic behind, when he departed forever more… and it cannot move from th site of it's abandonment…"_

A phantom ghost that fell and rose over and over, robes billowing, the light of Harry's final curse blossoming against his bare expanse of white, scaly chest. The edges of his skin overlapped with reality, the color of bark and grass shining through.

_"I weep for it…. I weep for it…"_

_"You, my warrior, brave child who holds within him Heart… Rescue it…. print the travesty…"_

_"Death you freed, and now…free…me…"_

His body didn't hurt like a bitch, and that was a new sensation. Harry woke up slowly, the void of his post-dream sleep focussing into the grainy, grey and gold darkness of his eyelids, the tingling, buzzing sensation of feeling returning to his limbs piercing the muggy fog of his sleep-weighted body like knives. It didn't hurt like a bitch, it just hurt, and Harry was used enough to that that he could completely ignore if he had to. And he had to, for, as his eyelids slowly fluttered open and his chest filled with a sudden jerky breath of burning cold air, Harry reached for his magic.

And it was there. Whole. Cloaking him like a glimmering aura of stormy grays, thrashing, sky-like blues contorted into greens and streaked with angry reds. A heavy, pungent blanket of His magic, streaming in through his nostrils to fill a wounded pair of lungs, clogging his mouth with fuzzy, healing warmth, cutting off his startled cry with a tendril of roiling energy down his abused throat, and dancing tauntingly, gleefully before his eyes. Free.

"What…?" His breathless question rung in his ears painfully, and his magic flinched and coiled around him, a lightly warning shock tingling his parted lips. Like the reprimanding tap of a lover.

_But this isn't possible! _He thought dazedly, raising slightly glowing hands into the air above him, turning them over and around as if examining for wounds he knew had been there earlier, but had been knit over with pink flesh and sinewy muscle.

_It can't be! Tom, he- he sealed this! _Harry marveled, basking in the fiery glow of his power as it slithered into his cuts and wounds and healed them.

The golden colored hands, his own, dropped to the ground, feeling hard packed earth there- not the slippery blood-soaked one he had blacked out on, nor the tiled floor of the infirmary- and pushed. The work spun and bucked as Harry rose shakily to his feet, his legs struggling to stay under him, his magic undulating and rippling angrily around him.

" Err, thanks…" he muttered, as one grey-green cloud of power steadied his elbow, " Thank you." he said again, warmly, and the hard clump of magic dissipated back into mist. Harry squinted, shaking the buzzy, cottony feeling from his head and blinking the last blurry remnants of sleep from his eyes.

He gasped.

There, before him, towering just a rolling slope of patchy green and straw-colored grass away, stood Hogwarts. Spires and turrets of shambling stone bursting upwards, flickering lights behind tall, arched windows, the distant, billowing capes of magical wards, glinting in the frigid winter sun. Harry took a shocked step backwards, tripped, his ankle wobbling precariously, and was flung backwards into a hard tree trunk by his own momentum. He spared a fleeting glance upward at the tree (one of the Forbidden Forests, tall, extremely leafy, draped in a few dusty spider-webs), beforee his gaze jerked front and landed, riveted, on Hogwarts.

It was as if the ancient walls had a gravity all it's own, pulling him with limping, stumbling steps forwards, the sky and ground arching and swirling out of focus around it- dissolving into just him, Harry, struggling forwards up the grassy slope, and his home, the only place he had ever loved. He didn't notice he was crying until the first involuntary, mumbled apology burst from his lips.

" Oh god, you are so beautiful, so lovely, your alive, you're alive, I'm so sorry, so sorry, so very very sorry I could't, it was impossible, I died, but I couldn't save you, I couldn't help you, please gods please please be whole be the same. Oh thank you, thank you, thank gods, thankgodthankgodthankgodthankgod…!"

_Thank you, _He wept his eyes squeezing shut as his fingers softly, reverently reached the tall stone walls,_ Thank you so much, Heart, so much._

Harry didn't allow himself to collapse himself against the stones of Hogwarts and weep himself once more into a healing sleep, but he did slump against it's cold, hard surface and just bask in the spicy, volatile nature of Hogwarts natural magic. His hands weren't idle, they skimmed the rough, craggy stones gently, revealing in the feeling of the innate heart-beat that the castle held, and his eyes devoured the beautiful view of the Hogwarts crest, flapping above him in the wind. He was home. He was back.

Everything would be okay, now. He had his magic, he had his Home, and inside him, whispering on the fringes of his mind, the hauntingly beautiful voice of the Heart urging him on.

A rueful smile twisted his face as Harry glanced upwards again from his marvelously healed hands, and his mind called forth the voices of all he had cared about.

_Oh yes. I'm ready this time, and I solemnly swear, I am up to no good._


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER ONE**

He was tired- his magic still thrummed pleasantly around him, but it was slow and gentle, feeling, and the darkness was creeping along the edges of his vision. Voices that echoed rang in his head, the feeling of his stumbling feet ramming into raised cobblestones and hard clumps of dirt muted inside his head and the drum like-throbbing of his blood, coursing through his veins, the clash of titans by comparison.

He really shouldn't be moving in this situation, Harry sighed, stumbling around another corner, one hand outstretched and seeking the wall for balance, the other scrubbing viciously at his decidedly tear-stained face. Not that he didn't love the guts out of her, but Hogwarts had aways had too many damn towers, they clung to the outside like an second, extra bulbous skin, and it was hell struggling around each one on bruised, tender feet, his head echoing with the impeding crash of dark and overwhelming memories. His magic danced around him like a self-satisfied cat, refusing to disappear from it's aura-like state, and it's playful tugging on his skin and clothes felt weighted- so impatient his magic was to reach the inner magic of Hogwarts. Just the thought relaxed Harry, to be able to feel her wild, cheerful warmth after so many years…

Harry staggered out of one of the towers dark shadows, and into the sunlight. Harry didn't allow himself to stop, but his body jerked forward awkwardly as he surveyed the spot, stomach sinking as he realized where he was.

_Harry bolted, panting and gasping for air as one hand frantically clutched at the torn flesh of his neck. He could hear her, over the piercing din of battle cries and violent curses, his name, Ron's, a soundless crescendo of pain and fear that could rival Mollys voice in shrillness._

_" Hermione!" he roared, lunging under a Death Eaters outstretched arm, one of his sharp elbows jerking up to crush the taller mans jaws vicously- he went down behind Harry with a cry of pain and the gurgle of a bloody cough." Hermione!"_

_There were too many people, a writhing mass of corpses and twisting battle robes, light blinded and dazzled him even as he bit and tore and ripped at the crowd with his hands and his magic, searching searching, trying to find her in the crowd. She needed him!_

_His foot hit someones head with a sickening crush and Harry stumbled, falling and rolling to avoid a swiftly approaching curse before sprinting wildly on, magic humming in his veins as he threw it out over his shoulder, praying it would hit the enemy. A young girl, a student crashed into him and they when down in a tumble of limbs and half-pronounced curses, Harry ripping her off of him, paying just a moment to shrug his cloak onto her bloodied shoulders and quickly nail her attacker with a Stupefy, before he was off again, rounding a corner into a sudden burst of free space and…_

_His foot collided with wet, slick ground and Harry slipped, falling down to the ground wit a shrill cry of surprise. His head landed in the middle of the wetness, and his flailing hands gripped onto several solid somethings. Harry caught his bretah for a moment, splayed across the ground. Clammering to his feet, still wildly casting his gaze around, Harry spared a glance at what he still grasped in his palm._

_A hand. On it's finger glistened a beautiful gold ring, a single ruby glinting tauntingly at him. Harry looked down._

_And screamed. And screamed and screamed._

_Blood. Staining the cobblestones. A hand and a foot, hung haphazardly in random spots. A mound of something brown and bushy- hair. And with glassy eyes, vacant and milky, her blood-flecked face contorted into a grimace of absolute agony. Hermione._

_Harry screamed._

Harry sped up, his quick, staggering steps degenerating into wild, limping lunges. His breath ghosted over his lips, hot and quick, as Harry heaved himself around the walls, his hands palming his eyes, grinding out bitter stinging tears. He would not scream, or cry… or scream. Harry bit hard on his lips, and staggered around another corner into a blue shadow of a tower.

It was behind him now, Harry coaxed himself. Done and gone and it WILL NOT HAPPEN AGAIN. Not again… It shouldn't have even happened once, Harry would sooner die that let those, those THINGS happen again. Harry walked faster, eyes latched on the horizon.

(( You're running away again. Shouldering the burden of what you DID NOT DO. Lay the blame on who deserves it…. kill them before it happens again or it WILL be your fault…))

" Shut up. Shutupshutupshutup."

(( You're just a coward, a sniveling little Freak. Face the real world Harry. Kill or be killed. Dark deeds spawn darker deeds…"

" Shut up!" Harry roared, feverishly telling himself that no-no-no-this-is-not-me " You're a bloody unhelpful conscience! You're wrong, wrong wrongwrongwrong!" His voice rose to a shrill, deafening shriek at the end, his eyes skewed shut against tears of enraged defiance, swinging hands clutched into quivering white fists, even as his chest and body heaved with a denying passion, his furious pace glitching and stuttering.

Harry stumbled to an abrupt stop, the grimace of fury slowly slackening and dropping off of his features. A bewildered, slightly dazed look spread across his flushed and panting face.

" I'm talking to myself, " he murmured, " I'm bloody talking to myself! And I sound like a PSYCHIATRIST."

(( You're a bloody unhelpful hero, mate. Right now, I'M doing legwork. Strong psyche my ASS.)) the voice said smugly, and Harry couldn't stop the manic grin from spreading across his face as he stumbled forward once more.

_I'm so fucked up…_

Harry ran a shaking hand through his hair, still sensitive to feeling of his abruptly passive magic sliding against the skin of his knuckles, and thought hard, brutally shoving the image of Hermione, splattered across the ground like a grotesque parody of a water balloon… Hogwarts was back, and Harry could hazard a couple of guesses, wild, impossible hopes that, almost effortlessly, banished the slinking footsteps of memories behind him. It had been a while since Harry had refined, with the help of an intrigued and giddy Hermione, his hyper sensitive magical sight, and since then the slight ghostly feelings of the magic world- Ollivanders, Hogwarts, the Chamber of secrets, the mInistry- had developed into physical recognitions. Light, painting the world a dazzling, phantasmal rainbow… just the way magic should….

And Hogwarts felt different. Yes, he hadn't seen her whole and happy in so many years, Harry interjected just before the annoying conscience of his could pipe up- but she felt… younger somehow. A sort of bracing freshness lingered in the air, like a quiet memory of someplace clean and polished, mirrors that had been scrubbed to a gleaming luminosity, and Luna's muggle-made lilac soap.

Harry took a deep breath in, tasting the spice and warmth of Hogwarts magic mingle with his own, stormy one, and the clean taste of the air. Not a lot warmer, but just a bit. Maybe he could… if he wanted to, it should work….

Images of burning hot memories, adrenaline pulsing in the scorching air around his skin, buffeting him with a furious sort of affection, moving him in the familiar dance- step roll, spell, curse, dodge, whip, jab, kick, curse, spell, doge, punch…run…run… The inexplicable mess of destruction he struggled through, leaving demolished bases, houses, and mangled corpses in his wake, and the dark, clingy stench of his enraged magic. Miracles all of them. Fame on his fists, ice cloaking his clumsy thrusts of sword, solid winds beneath his feet, clean and lively, carrying him over the gaping chasm between trees and buildings. He could do anything...

Harry halted mid step and turned so that he was facing the wall. Now that he thought about it, he hadn't examined anything on him- last he remembered he had won, finally, and the poor, stuttering man had stumbled in on him during him as his worse… Not that he could apologize, NOW, but it still made him feel guilty. Just a tiny bit.

He dug one hang into the over-sized pockets of his ripped muggle jeans, wrinkling his nose at their state. They were definitely the same ones he had worn at the end, several sizes to big and worn to bloody tatters, streaked with mud and pond scum. His hand dug deeper, into a thick lining of muck that squelched in the seams and… His familiar Holly and Pheonix feather sparked mildly as he drew it out with a pleasantly relieved smile, twirling it fondly between grubby fingers, gently swiping it wit a wandlessly summoned handkerchief. A couple of fancier twirls and his bare feet were wrapped in conjured bandages, his broken, shattered glasses that he hadn't noticed hanging off of the collar of his shirt, were repaired and placed on his nose, the scum pooling in his pockets magically vanished and everything else just as it had been before- bloody, muddy and ridiculously torn.

Now for some tiring magic. Harry leveled his wand at the hogwarts wall( the heat of the wood unbelievably comforting between his fingers), took a deep breath in-

_Wish me luck…_

(( Break a leg.))

- and pushed.

His magic surged through his arms, bursting like a tidal wave of blinding, rainbow scaled fish, it hit the wall with a deafening whump of soundless impact that Harry could feel vibrating through his clenched teeth, and spread like bubbling, seething molasses over the aura of Hogwarts, searching reading… The words of his magic hit Harry like a dozen hammers to the head, and Harry fell to his knees with a muted cry of pain, gritting his teeth over his lip to bite back a pathetic moan as he guided the spell with a shaking, strained arm.

Children… stones… classes… sun… wards… dark taint…. blinding lights, growing stronger… the crystals…. wealth and enchantments littered and hidden… time…

Harry jerked out of the spell with a wild spasm of the muscles of his arms, breaking the connection between him, his magic and Hogwarts by violently throwing himself backwards. The shining tidal wave of stormy magic quivered their for a moment, suspend by thin threads to the craggy stones before it detached from Hogwarts walls with a muted pop and drifted lazily down to the earth, folding itself around Harry's shaking, quivering body like a blanket, humming contentedly around him and undulating happily.

Twenty years. Twenty bloody years. The Heart had sent him back in time, two YEARS before he was born, and that meant… That meant that, that James and Lily-

" Fuck." gasped Harry, curling into a tight ball on his side and resting his throbbing eyes onto his knees " I'm am I…?"

_How am I going stay sane. How am I gonna keep them safe? Save the world at the same time? Kill people while watching my parents, live happy and carefree, only two years before they were brutally murdered, IN FRONT OF ME!_

The heart couldn't have sent him back to when Tom Riddle was a helpless, harmless baby and harry could have Avada Kedavra'd it in three seconds flat. No, no. Harry was magically transported backwards in time to what? Stop his parents from being murdered? Save the order from demolition?

(( That sounds about right.)) said the annoying voice, it's cutting tone permeating through the haze of Harry's panicked musings. (( Hunt the Horcrux' , keep your parents alive so that you can be born and not create a paradox, and make sure the largest, most capable Anti-Death Eater force is strong and prepared. Sounds like a plan to ME…))

He could have fallen asleep there, splayed across the spiky, weed-ridden floor of the glade, his eyes glazed with tiredness, gaze lazily roving across the leafy roof of his forest tent. The sun shone in buttery, golden shafts from in between gaps in the leaves, hitting the white corpses of rotting oak leaves and dancing there, a gleaming blanket of light pooling around the forest floor. There was a quiet sort of music, chiming across the glade, a soft whispery voice that whisked through swaying branches and danced across Harry's rising, falling chest with prickly, tickling feet, swirling around his ghosty plumes of his breath and racing upwards , across the green and blue sky.

It was beautiful, serene, the blood that coursed through Harry's veins had finally slowed, his heart thumping quietly against his ribs, a fluttering whisper of drumbeat.

He could have fallen asleep there, bathed in light and dappled in shadow, his magic dancing wit the wind around him, tendrils of smoky essence rising through breaks in the foliage to illuminate the fluttering drapes of dusty cobwebs that smothered the lowest, shadiest branches.

He could have, just a few meters away from the comforting walls of Hogwarts, cocooned in a bubble of inexplicable serenity, a feeling so close to perfection teasing his weary soul and a electrifying sensation of MAGIG, and NATURE, and CLEANLINESS, singing through the crisp breeze- he could have fallen asleep there.

Except the night wouldn't let him. And Harry almost…almost couldn't bring himself to mind.

But he did.

_" Harry? Harry, I'm so sorry, I swear… 'm srry…. so…You can't do, th-th-that again, you hear? We're mates right? We'll get through this sooner or later, thats…thats how Harry Potter works. We all get through this in the end…besides….there still that Cannons game I need to take you to! I swear you'd love-!"_

He really did.

Shaking, ivory hands clenched spastically, crushing the delicate, dew-covered spines of grass enclosed within with brutish force. Pain felt good; stinging bolts of flame that coursed up the twitching expanse of his arms, grounding him, reminding him that he was alive…alive and awake and the voices -shadowy, whispered in the voice of thunder and monsoons, resouding through the void like shell of his head as if there was some-one in there, raking their nails across the inside of his mind- the voices weren't real!

"_ 'Arry! H-harry don't come! Don' come I tell ya! Stay right where ya are, I' be back before' ya know it…"_

Curtains of black, washing over his vision, tides of memories, dizzyingly familiar, just phantom touches of earth and biting agony…

_"…I always thought… that… Rose…Rose, was a good name…th-they have thorns…you know? Strong flowers…the most pretty shades of red….soft…floaty…like the sun-…-set."_

There was something inside him, a heavy rock, coiled around his struggling psyche, layers of slate colored granite hardened like a violent parody of armor around his core. Sleep, gently blotting out the peace, the soft dance of trees swaying in a musical wind- and his magic, a storm pulling him into the furthest depths of a deep dark sea.

" No…" a mumbled cry, close to a plea, thready and weak- spoken in a waspish sort of warble.

" …Please…"

Harry Potter never begged- he couldn't. It didn't get him anywhere with Vernon, or Dumbledore, or Lucius Malfoy, when all he could see in the dark, dank labyrinths of the Death Eaters estate was the pale mans own, taunting presence and his mocking, pitying glare….Harry had killed his son. He had, with his two, thin and calloused hands dug out the boys heart, unable anymore to stomach looking into a pale face, drawn and gaunt with hunger and apathy, the light of a soul so absent, it was as if the darkness of the silvery depths ate up life itself, feasting quietly at the young boys energy until…until…It had taken a firm strike, a single, grubby paw jabbed between two ribs, sliding through a bony raving of ribs and puppy, fleshy insides…

He should have begged for forgiveness. But he didn't. Because if Harry Potter begged, then the wizarding world begged. Hogwarts begged. Albus begged. Sirius, and lily and James and Cedric and Ginny and…they would all beg.

And he couldn't do that.

Not to them.

" I don't want to…" Did he expect to be helped? No. He didn't. The memories sank their claws into his twitching flanks, old scars festering beneath his skin, old hurts bursting open in a flesh, gory parody of trail mix. There was no-one their to ease his locked knees up, to raise his arched back up off it's painfully contorted position on the ground. No smooth, milky-white hand to smooth his hair from his damp forehead, to gently comb the matts from the rotting mess, to trail soft, teasing fingers down a bruised, sensitive arm and weave with his own, spider-like hand…

_" I love you, you twat and no! Don't interrupt me! I'm not having you shove some angsty, heroic crap on me this time, I'm talking now, and that means that you're listening. Now Harry. Right now, I'm going step up real close to you, I'm going to snog the living daylights out of you until old MOLDYSHORTS can feel it, and then, and then you're gonna tae this ring…here, like this…yes… You're going to this ring and you're gonna put it on my finger. Capish?"_

" Not her…not HER…" groaned Harry, eyes squeezing shut in desperate attempt to shut out the gentle coaxing voice of the girl he had loved, her tongue lashing cockily even in the dim reminisces of his mind. He could see her face now…

_"…no hope….right in the solar plexus….the sternum too….a shattered core, completely decimated.. struck three times…a dark spell? No no no. Just over powered…. we've tried that, and THAT , Geoffrey, her heat is still plummeting…. anesthetic, anesthetic! She's moving, the spells they'll!…Yes, yes, it's tragic….she held on….stubborn till the end….she was holding this when…"_

_She looked less beautiful the she had in life. Her robust skin sagged off of crumbling bones, a pasty white that shone waxen, like a yellow moon. Her hair hung in tatters, matted wild, twisted, like her face, as if in defiance. The color of it… red. Not like Rons, or Molly's, or the other Weaseleys. No. It was a deep, violent red, heavy and saturated, like wine, and glowing dimly, like blood lit by the stars.._

" Stop. Some one make it stop." the words were hoarse with tears, grating on the ears, and hot tears boiled over his cheeks, sliding over paralyzed skin as the voices drowned out his own, his feeble cries for help, for mercy, for anything and plunging him down…down…down…

"O-oi! Who the hell do you reckon _that_ is?!"

The world froze.

Rewind, stop. Play.

"O-oi! Who the hell do you reckon _that _is!"

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat…no…

Harry's breath, already labored and weak caught in his throat, his eyes slamming open like shutters flung out from a windowsill, gaze instantly snapping to where the voice -young and boyish, with a hint of an aristocratic accent and a slight slur of casual slang- had come from. The air around him stilled, shocked silence descending over the dappled glade like a ton of bricks dropping from a third story window, the whole floor seemed to reverberate from the shock of the other boys entrance.

It couldn't be.

The boy had a thin, gangly looking face, set atop a longish neck and a short, but rakish looking figure. Black wizarding robes swirled around his frozen figure, and a spiky, wind-swept mop of shiny, well-washed black hair stuck out from is head, framing two wide, hazel eyes that gleamed at Harry from behind wire-rimmed spectacles. He was poised mid-stumble, a small pile of leaves atop his head slowly sliding off one side of his head and drifting lazily to the forest floor, twigs poking out of holes in his muddy uniform and his thick, well-polished wand grasped tightly in one hand.

James. James Potter. James _Charlus _Potter.

Harry's dad.

The little boy turned his hands over, watching them curiously as tendrils of a soft, smoky light curled lovingly around his fingers. The caress was that of a snake, twining playfully and intimately around scraped knuckles and bruised callouses, the dim grey glow the only light illuminating the surrounding darkness, skinning on a patch of void and the tall edge of a tree trunk. Grasses swayed gently and leaves danced in time with the small gloves of light, flowers shrouded in gloom and invisible curled around the boys ankles, tickling the sensitive skin there, illiciting a soft, huffing laugh from the boy. Unwilling to disturb the flickering light, the boy scrubbed his face with his tatty, cotton covered shoulder, sniffing slightly into the fabric as his wet cheeks scraped against gritty dirt-covered fibers.

High above his head, a cloud covered the moon and a roaring wind churned the air of the heavens. It's deafening footsteps hushed the boy, where he sat, huddled in a cradling meadow of oak trees and pines. No light of dawn stained the sky red or blue, and the uniform, starless black of it glared down at him from between gaps in the trees, tagging behind his every, ominously loud footsteps as he was tugged to his feet, the light catching on his arms and pulling, leading him -stumbling and tripping- through the darkness, through rows of towering trees.

There was a wordless cry of rage as the light jerked him out of the cradle of night and into a bright world of light.

Green eyes suddenly cast in the glow of a bright, thumbing flame, a bonfire spreading across the sky. Trembling, white hands gently dropped, the smoky cloud of flickering grey and white drifting up, up and away into the distant, colorful horizon.

" Hello Harry."

Music thrummed in the boys veins and around him, the world rotated, shifting into the soft, yellow scape of a grassland. Looming forms of animals lumbered in droves across the swaying golden expanse, all sized and shapes. Eyes of every color -lilac, and periwinkle, and maroon, and a deep, deep cobalt- blinked curiously as the figures whisked past.

"Always wanted to meet you, but I'm afraid this meeting is a bit…important."

The little boy stepped forward, reaching to touch the soft head of a prancing giraffe as it passed him. The smooth expanse of hair dissolved like ash between his hands, and a horrifying emptiness sucked away the grassland, stripes of green and yellow and the flailing bodies of animals spiraling into a hole of. .

"Do you want to go home, Harry? Or do you want to fight?"

A small figure, draped in grey, hunkered down, once again all alone in a terrible terrible blackness, with only a rumbling, echoing voice, thrumming in his head. Harry wept.

"Ah, but Harry…they are one and the same. It is your nature. You cannot have one without another."

The darkness clenched around him and he cried out, feeling his rags rip around him, as if torn by a raging wind, whipped off into the terrible abyss. He reached out for them desperately, the small, fluttering scraps slipping between his fingers.

" You will belong here, in time. This is your home. These…we, are your family."

Harry stood on the threshold of awareness, broad-shoulders thrust backwards against the wind, gaze riveting on the distant, glittering horizon- the ghostly figures extending long, searching fingers for him, silhouetted darkly against a blinding warmth.

" You've alway been the Fate's, Harry…Always and always…It makes you even more strong than you were."

And he was walking, legs strong as they hadn't been for years, healthy beneath him, his own voice ringing in his ears, laughing and singing and screaming rage and anger and fear, the strong hands of destiny draped across his shoulders. To his right a face dissolved out of the empty, blue space. It was pretty, slightly reminiscent of a cats and a birds at the same time, glowing, slitted eyes an ambiguous color, coiling curtains of hair a dark, glimmering color, and figure obscured behind fluttering layers of gossamer light.

His magic.

" You're not healed Harry…" said the pretty face in his ear, the hot, spicy breath ghosting over sensitive skin, " But you knew that, didn't you? I'll see you when you wake up."

A chaste kiss, pressed to the messy top of his head.

"James is a handsome boy isn't he? Not half as cool as you, though…"

With a chuckle, she disappeared into the fading dream. Then Harry woke up.

Harry had been awake for around an hour now, and could honestly say that he wished he had not ever emerged from what mustve been a magically induced coma. He hadn't slept dreamlessly in years- it felt as if the darkness had engulfed him near seconds before he was up again, body seizing as he jerked himself into a foggy, swimming world of dim blue light and starched cotton sheets. There were a few embarrassingly panicked seconds where he grappled frantically for his magic, body constricted in a cocoon of sheets and blankets and himself instinctualy wrestling against the entangling effects of a duvet cover without holes or simpering, limp stitches. He remembered the blurry, musty feeling of a drug slipping off his flailing consciousness, of stripes of eyelashes parting crustily to reveal a gleaming, underwater silhouette of a bedpost, of the stark fear hovering over the jumble of thoughts that sprung instantly to his mind, the moment his shoddy occlumency snapped into place and everything became clear and calm and precise, his aborted garb for his wand when he realized that the room was silent besides his own labored pants.

The moment his mind caught up to what his eyes had sought out in reflex, images of an exit- just a few feet away from him, and pooled in the cast shadow of a flickering torch- piercing the haze of instinctual ESCAPE-ESCAPE-ESCAPE.

And the moment his brain was booted into full action. His arms fell. His knees relaxed, folding under the weight of their half-healed injuries. His eyes lidded in a parody of sleep and cooly, calmy, without really thinking about it, he reached inside of himself, grabbed hold of his magic, and ripped. Colors exploded into light around him, before settling around him like a flickering, dusty fog; tendrils of smoky, wind-tasting energy streaming from pores in his body, and billowing out into the room, clogging the dim aquatic light with a kaleidoscope of familiar stormy magic. The comers of the stone room lit up like veins of gold where his magic stroked, detailing four walls in gleaming outline, a vaulted but flat, rectangular, roof, and a similar floor, patterned with smooth ceramic tiles. A side door shone foggy purple, it wasn't empty but it wasn't a threat, and the tall embossed, mahogany one arching in front of him painted a fascinating array of speckled, rainbow lights.

A soft, whispery voice sounded in his ear, and Harry shivered, scrubbing absently at the heated flesh there. 'INFIRMARY.' it reported in sibilant tones, 'INFIRMARYNOPOEPLEHERE. INHOGWARTS.'

His brain gave another feeble kick, spluttered out and then exploded.

" W-w-w-what! How the…when did THAT happen!" he protested feebly, and the entire room flickered and dimmed as his magic floated back towards him, condenseing into a purring, roiling mass of light, hovering over his chest. A round cloud of green-gray-purple butted him lightly in the chin, feeling soft and spongy, and Harry got the distinct idea -through his somewhat fuzzy shock- that it was amused by his confusion. Well!

" What the hell." he said again, and let his head fall back into the pillow with a dull 'clump' of whispery movement. He could hear, vaguely, that his magic had found several healing and stasis charms stitched into the salves which oiled his injuries, and a stream of Skelegrow cycling through his system. His eyes shut, and in vain he attempted to to quell a frustrated blush from spreading from his neck to his ears. All that stupid, half-asleep flailing, and he was in the exact location he had been heading to…before. And in different pants. He groaned again, louder this time, and couldn't stop an aggravated jerk which landed him with his bicep stuffed into his dry mouth. Pomfrey had changed his pants.

Pomfrey had changed his pants! And his UNDERPANTS! His left hand shook over the hem of the offending items, feeling their innocently silky stitching, before traveling down the skin on the top of his thigh. A sudden throb of angry heat jolted his fingers to a stop, and a frown of a different nature clouded his face, grim and bitter, as he ran shaking, numb fingers over the swollen, spasming muscles there. The entire expanse of skin bulged swollenly with quivering veins, and though he couldn't see this legs, as they were still swaddled in several layers of comfy sheets., he was quite sure he would be able to make out a map of blue from beneath his bruises, as high and stiff they were raised under his wandering thumb.

"Damn…" he muttered into his hand, squinting up at the shadowy canopy in an effort to drown the wave of helplessness that washed over him. He was in Hogwarts, twenty years before his time, clad only in a pair of white silk boxers, and with totaly ruined legs. His fingers twitched to his eyes, obviously wanting to scrub the stinging flesh there. Fuck this, he thought fiercely, jerking himself into a sitting position and stubbornly ignoring the violent stars that blotted out the world and the equally sudden and painful clench of sea-sickness in his stomach as the world FLIPPED, rolled and played dead; FUCK THIS.

His bravado didn't fail as his legs were thrown roughly before him with a wave of his hand and a surge of reluctant magic, the buzzing soles of his feet brushing the cold tiles and burning, as even that minuscule texture irritated sensitive, re-growing skin.

" C'mon body, WORK with me here!" he growled, and glared rather sulkily at his ugly, ugly legs as they wobbled beside him. He groped around for a moment in the gloom for the edge of the bed frame he knew was around him somewhere, and the wall, before bucking his hips forward and throwing a small amount of weight on his legs. His heels met the stone tiles with a dull, wet thwack, and a brittle crack as something deep, deep inside the bones arched, shuddering and split.

"BLOODYBUGGERINGFUCKINGSHIT!"

Harry grit his teeth, small tracks of disobedient tears creeping from his stinging eyes to trail moltenly down his cheeks, curses still pouring brokenly from bleeding, bitten lips. Everything hurt, goddamn it, it. Hurt. Like. Fuck. The bones of his shins creaked from their position, bent brokenly and sprawled out beside him on the hard floor, skin hot and shiny pink where it had been regenerated, small cuts and incisions dotting their twitching flanks where swollen skin had burst over shards of bone and inflamed muscles. His thighs clenched painfully, the muscles knotting to concrete along his hamstring and knees, and his knees….his knees….The anger fled him quickly as despair quickly crowded him.

Ruined. He was ruined. No more running, no more fighting. No more flying…

NO! screamed a voice inside him, You are Harry Fucking Potter, you can DO THIS! GET UP! WALK!

Ruined…burned beyond repair like inedible toast. Funny thought that…toast…

GET UP ((GET UP))

_There you are, I was wondering where you had disappeared to. Did you-did you know? I bet that-that we were targeted so much because we're TOAST and everyone wants to eat TOAST. Voldemort was HUNGRY! HE WANTED TO EAT ME!_

Harry burst into hysterical, wet, chuckles, heaveing dryly as his giggles turned into choking sobs, then gagging, then faint groans as his stomach clenched in spain. GET UP. One clawed hand thrust into the floor and Harrys torso rose limply over it, legs dragged numbly behind his pelvis, clothed abrasions rubbing against waxy tile. A rattling breath rang through the air as his chest deflated under the resounding flare of pain the movement caused. 'I can't. I really can't. GET UP.

I can't, see… Dull eyes anchored on the door as Harry's shacking arms wrapped around the bedpost, snaking around to encircle the wood almost protectively. See… Muscles straining, Harry hoisted himself onto the bed, and with a cry of pain, managed to brace himself upright, his feet still limp and folded on the floor, his right hip digging into the mattress, cradled in therapeutic down. His magic was a round him again, faint and thus invisible, nudging his legs into the right position. See, I can't… Harry stood up.

YOU CAN. (( IDIOT, STANDING UP IS WHAT WE DO BEST))

" I can do this." murmured Harry hoarsely, " Yes. Yes, I can do this. I CAN!"

He took a step, ignoring the snack, the spurt of blood as one of the bulging blue veins popped, the whistle as his magic streamed into the open wound, plugging it. His torso lurched forward to meet his right leg and his arms wound around the foot of the bed, white and clenched tightly against the agony. He took another another . Everything shifted, bones grating against each other, muscles twitching and straining and blood spasming to a halt inside him, his whole frame wobbled and suddenly he was tripping, falling and flailingg wildy… and catching himself, like he always did. The door drew closer. And closer. And Harry remembered what was behind it.

People.

He flung it open, and promptly fell onto his face…


End file.
